Sunday, 11 May 2014

The Guardian: "Eurosceptic parties could gain up to a third of the total vote and up to 200 of the 751 seats in the next European parliament"

Even Britain's leftist pro EU The Guardian newspaper has to admit that EU-critical parties are in for a good result in the forthcoming EU elections:

In Britain, Ukip's Nigel Farage, pint in hand, has already pulled British politics to a place close to the EU exit door. But euroscepticism is no longer a curiosity of these islands. Marine Le Pen, leader of France's Front National, has even grander designs than Farage. Le Pen plans to use the forthcoming elections to form an alliance dedicated to wrecking the "monster in Brussels" from within. Her party is on course to top the polls in France.In Italy, an ex-comic, Beppe Grillo, whose anti-establishment shtick has its origins in the anarchic left, ridicules the recent succession of Italian prime ministers who have "become the slaves of financial interests and economic decisions taken elsewhere". The Five-Star movement which he founded in 2007 is second in Italy's polls, predicted to win 25% of the vote. The Greek socialists of Syriza are riding high from Athens to Alexandroupoli on the back of a promise to roll back crushing EU-imposed debt repayments.Even in the land of Borgen, where consensus politics provided an unlikely template for cult television viewing, rebellion is in the air. The Danish People's party – anti-EU, anti-multiculturalism and anti-immigration – is pledging to "assert Denmark's independence and to guarantee the freedom of the Danish people in their own country". The DPP, which like Ukip has profited from popular resentment at the extension of welfare benefits to immigrant workers, sits in first place in the polls, also with a share of 25%. In the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, and across much of eastern Europe, it is a similar story.Two weeks from the elections, it seems possible – probable even – that Eurosceptic parties could gain up to a third of the total vote and up to 200 of the 751 seats in the next European parliament. Given that less than half of the Union's electorate are likely to vote at all, those figures suggest an overwhelming majority of Europeans are either apathetic towards the ongoing project of a common borderless European home or actively hostile. --